Buying a smart video doorbell makes a lot of sense in 2023. Here are some of the best (battery powered) ones you can buy and give your front door the upgrade it needs.
Upgrade to One of these Battery Powered Smart Video Doorbells and Keep an Eye on the Front Door Using a Video Feed on Your Phone
The good old doorbell works like a charm even to this day. However, once you’ve seen a smart doorbell in action, you’ll immediately rush out to buy one. The convenience of being able to look at who is at the door right from your phone, tablet or smart display is so amazing, you can’t go back to a regular doorbell at all.
The cool thing is - if you’re not at home and someone rings the doorbell, you’ll get a notification on your phone, and you can talk to them live using the power of the internet. Can your regular doorbell do that? It can’t and it never will.
But there is one problem - there are too many smart doorbells out there. In fact, way too many. It’s a Bluetooth speaker-type situation. You can end up buying the wrong one if you do not do your research. Thankfully, we did some legwork and picked out a few options that are super easy to install and require little to no work to get up and running.
We picked out options that do not require you to tinker around with the existing wiring either since all these doorbells are battery powered. In other words, all you have to do is unbox these doorbells, connect them to Wi-Fi and just stick them to your front door, or screw them into place, if that’s how you want to go about it.
Ring Video Doorbell
I will be completely bamboozled if someone says 'smart video doorbell' and that doorbell isn't from Ring. This is the doorbell that started it all and became a fan favorite overnight and it has everything in one package to get you going.
Setting up this doorbell is easy. You have two choices right out of the box - you can either use it on battery or connect it to your existing doorbell wiring for power, it's entirely up to you. If you can hook it up to your existing wiring, that's awesome so that you don't have to worry about charging up this doorbell ever.
Once you've set up the doorbell at your front door, just use the Ring app to connect it to your home's Wi-Fi network and have the same app walk you through on how to install the chime as well. It's really easy and it just takes a few minutes. The app will even install the latest updates, if any, at the end of the setup process.
Your doorbell is now ready for use. Whenever someone rings the doorbell, you'll instantly get a notification on your phone to see who's there and the included chime will also play a sound. You'll get a live video feed, you can even talk to who is at the door and even receive notifications for motion if someone came close to your door and walked away. You can even snooze notifications, select zones where you want to receive notifications from, view the doorbell's health, get smart alerts, share the doorbell with more users and so much more right from the Ring app.
The video feed is 1080p, which means it's super clear and the doorbell even works with Alexa. If you have an Alexa powered smart speaker, you can use that as a chime or use an Echo smart display to see the video feed from the front door. It gives you multiple ways to interact with the doorbell and all of them simply work.
There's a paid Ring Protect plan that lets you record and save videos in the cloud for up to 180 days. It's a great way to go back to find something you might have missed.
For a price of just $ 134.99 with the chime, this doorbell is the go-to for countless people out there. If you don't know where to begin and just need a smart doorbell that a lot of people swear by, this is it.
Google Nest Doorbell (Battery)
Chances are very high that you're deep into the Google ecosystem. If you are, then there's no better doorbell than the Nest Doorbell with battery.
Just like Ring, the Nest Doorbell is extremely easy to set up and use. The magic begins from the Google Home app, something which you already have installed on your iPhone or Android phone if you're deep into the Google ecosystem. Just do a quick setup, connect to Wi-Fi and you're basically done in a matter of minutes. You do get the option to hard-wire the doorbell to your existing doorbell wires, if you like.
Using the Google Home app, you can instantly get a view of your front door and the Home app lets you see up to 3 hours of video history. If you're willing to pay just a little, then the Nest Aware subscription turns those 3 hours into 60 days, which is a lot of video for you to look at.
Unlike the Ring Video Doorbell, the Nest one has built-in storage with the capability of storing up to 1 hour of video in case your Wi-Fi goes down. And the video saved is of great quality, 720p to be exact and you get a wide view of everything so that you do not miss the key details at all.
Obviously, you get the ability to answer your doorbell from anywhere, have a two-way conversation with the person at the door, respond with pre-recorded messages and so much more. It's a complete doorbell experience and one with Google written all over it.
If you have one of the Nest Hub displays at home, you'll be pleased to learn that you can use it as a display to answer the doorbell and see who is there, too. We usually end up using a smart display to see the time or cycling through photos but using it to answer the front door really takes everything to the next level.
For $179.99, the Nest Doorbell is definitely pricey. But it is the doorbell to get if you're building an ecosystem around Google hardware.
Buy Google Nest Doorbell (Battery)
Aqara Video Doorbell G4
There's always something out there to please the Apple fanboys among us. This doorbell from Aqara is one of those things and it packs a lot of great features for the price and even comes with the chime in the box.
Though this doorbell features support for every single ecosystem you can think of - Google Home, Amazon Alexa, IFTTT - but the fact that this doorbell supports HomeKit really makes it truly amazing. Because with that support, you get access to HomeKit Secure Video which basically means your doorbell will save all the video in the cloud without biting into your iCloud+ storage.
With that out of the way, you'll be delighted to learn that this doorbell features 1080p video recording that gives you an ultra-clear view of everything at the front door. The wide 162-degree field of view makes sure you get to see at things that would otherwise be out of view using a regular camera.
Apart from the full HomeKit support, you even get the option to use microSD as a storage option or use your existing NAS setup to save video. That's actually quite great in terms of privacy as nothing leaves your device and everything stays within your home.
You do get a chime with the doorbell which gets very loud. We're talking 95dB loud here. But that's not all, you can use a smart display or smart speaker as a chime for this doorbell or even see who is at the door. HomeKit support means you can use your HomePod speaker as a chime as well.
When it comes to power, you will be surprised with this one. Just use 6 AA batteries to power this doorbell up to 4 months. This means you don't have to worry about things like battery health dwindling over time. Apart from that, you get the option to hardwire the doorbell to your existing setup for unlimited battery life.
For a price of just $129.99, you'd want this doorbell for its robust HomeKit support. Even if you don't, you still get support for every other major smart home platform out there.
AOSU Video Doorbell
You can get a great doorbell for just $99.99. It comes with a chime and even offers great video quality, if that is something extremely important to you.
The AOSU video doorbell is priced just right and is aimed towards people who don't want to spend a dime with subscription for storing video. This is made possible with a built-in microSD slot in the chime which is capable of recording a 60-day loop footage. You even get the ability to access this footage anywhere, even if you're not at home, which is a mega bonus.
The doorbell itself features 2K video which instantly makes everything look detailed compared to anything else that falls in the 1080p or lower category. The 4:3 aspect ratio is also here, which gives you a wide view horizontally, but vertically as well. Usually doorbells prefer a horizontal wide view, but this doorbell covers both ends, which is nice.
With added support for Google Home and Amazon Alexa, you can set this doorbell up in a way that you can use your iPhone, Android phone, Google or Alexa smart display as a way to talk to people at the door or even view the video feed.
This doorbell will send you a motion notification even before someone actually rings the doorbell, you can even play pre-recorded messages for whoever is at the door and the built-in night vision mode means you'll get a clear view of everything, even if the sun is not up.
Priced at just $99.99, this is not a bad option if you want to keep things simple as possible, just like Ring.
Blink Video Doorbell
If you're aiming to get the cheapest doorbell possible with a built-in battery that doesn't require much setup effort then this option might do you good.
Nothing beats Basic like the Blink Video Doorbell. It's super easy to set up and you get the option to set it up using the existing wired connection or just use the built-in battery for power. If you take the existing wire route, this doorbell will also sound your existing door chime, which is great, because this means you don't have to invest in a chime at all.
Once you're done with the setting up process, you can use the Blink app to view your front door. The quality is 1080p, making everyone and everything nice and sharp to look at. If there's a detail that might have been missed, the 1080p quality will definitely catch it.
You will be notified of motion at the front door and everything will be recorded to the cloud using the Blink subscription plan. It costs just $3 per month to add one Blink doorbell for recording video or $10 if you plan on using more. Chances are, you'll just buy one of these so aim for spending $3 if you're planning to record video.
If you're not planning to save anything to the cloud, you can invest in something called the Sync Module 2. Just connect your USB drive to it and everything will be saved locally. Is it worth it? Sure, if you don't want video leaving your home.
Blink supports Alexa through and through. If you have an Echo speaker or an Alexa smart display, you'll be able to use both as a chime. Of course, you can use the display to have a two-way video chat with someone at the door. The future is now.
For a price of just $59.99, this is a very good option for those who do not want to spend money north of $99.99 for a smart doorbell.
WccftechContinue reading/original-link]
